(NEXSTAR) – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is ditching its “Fab Five” format for the acting categories at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards.
The format, most recently embraced at the 96th Academy Awards in 2024, takes place during the reading of the nominees, and features five previous Oscar winners (or nominees) heaping praise on the year’s potential recipients. Last year, for instance, the award for Best Actress was presented by previous winners Sally Field, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron and Michelle Yeoh, each of whom took a moment to list the accomplishments of a specific Best Actress honoree. Nicolas Cage, Brendan Fraser, Ben Kingsley, Matthew McConaughey and Forest Whitaker did the same while presenting the Best Actor category.
The Academy had revived its Fab Five format specifically for the 2024 ceremony, hyping it up just days before that year’s broadcast.
“I think one of the things we’re most excited about is what we call Fab Five,” Oscars producer Raj Kapoor said during a Zoom meeting leading up to the show, Billboard reported.
Kapoor further noted that he and his fellow production team revived the segment (first used at the 2009 ceremony) because it was “one of the best moments” of any show “in Oscars history.”
“It was past winners speaking to present nominees, and just that lovely connection and that human interaction,” Kapoor said.
This year, however, the producers have nixed the Fab Five format in the acting categories, while retaining it in “the director’s category and for some of the artisans awards,” according to Variety.
Variety’s sources claim that the show’s producers made the decision prior to the announcement of the nominees, but did not reveal the specific impetus for the move. One factor, Variety reported, was the perceived difficulty of gathering all the necessary Oscar winners to continue the tradition.
In removing the Fab Five format from the acting categories, the Academy is nevertheless sidestepping an issue that could have otherwise been a major complication: i.e., tasking a presenter with honoring “Emilia Pérez” nominee Karla Sofía Gascón.
Gascón, who is nominated in the Best Actress category, has come under fire for several older posts she made to X, which critics have called out as bigoted and racist. Among them, multiple posts concerned Muslims, one referenced George Floyd’s murder, and others referred to the origin of the COVID-19 virus in China. Posting about the 2021 Oscar ceremony, Gascón also wrote: “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
Gascón has since removed the posts and issued an apology. But sources for The Hollywood Reporter indicated that Netflix, which distributed “Emilia Pérez,” no longer offered to foot the bill for Gascón to attend the pre-awards ceremonies. (Gascón later said she would be stepping back from the campaign to “let the film to be appreciated for what it is.”) Netflix also appears to be downplaying Gascón on a webpage dedicated to the “Emilia Pérez” awards push; the site currently features a large image of co-star and Best Supporting Actress nominee Zoe Saldaña.
A representative for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, when contacted, did not disclose any reasoning for the removal of the Fab Five segment during the acting categories.
On Wednesday, however, the Academy confirmed that all four of the most recent recipients in those categories — Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Robert Downey Jr. — will be presenters at the upcoming ceremony. The Academy did not say which categories each would present.
The 97th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, is scheduled to air on Sunday, March 2.
Source: Fox 8 News Channel